Monroe Muffler Rant

Where to begin, let's see. Well it was the end of October. October 24th as was pointed out to me that I took my car to Monroe Muffler on Luther St. in Johnstown, PA. I had been there once before to get tires on my car and they seemed to do all right. So I take my can in for an oil change. (Side note I get my oil changed every three months and get my filters replaced when needed). I have a coupon $19.99 for oil change. The man at the counters says "Do you want your tires rotated too?" I say "sure may as well" They were probably due.

They change my oil and rotate the tires. Out comes the guy again. "When we rotated your tires we noticed your you need new tire rods, roters (sp), and break pads. You're tire rods are pretty much dangerous at this point." Now to be fair they had told me that my tire rods had a little give to them when I had my car inspected so it didn't surprise me much when he said that.

Then the quote: Over $600 for this work. Very close to the holidays and my inspection was due in a few weeks. I felt sick to my stomach. But like the frugalista I am (see previous blog) I decided to shop around at prices and see if I could get someone to do it cheaper. My husband handed the quote to his dad. His dad laughed. He says "no way, we can do that alot cheaper than that" And they did costing only $190 for all the work (and in that $190 was 2 cases of beer for the guys to work on it). So happy that I saved literally hundreds of dollars I took my car to Firestone to let them do the inspection.

The man comes out from the car area and shows me a list. "Ma'am some things I need to make you aware of: Your horn doesn't work very well, you need new windshield wipers, your brake drum is leaking and you need new wheel cylinders". I felt the color drain from my face. The quote again....over $600. By this time it's the very end of Nov. So in a last ditch effort I have my husband take my car to yet another shop. This time a local shop. He looks over it and agrees that yes my horn needed fixed and I needed new wiper blades but the rest was ok. $40....yea just $40.

But wait that's not it. My heater stopped working in my car Sunday. (Perfect timing with the 15 degree weather with -10 windchill factor. I had it checked over and had the thermostate replaced and said that there was a whole in the radiator and the coolant was low. So he patched it. My husband says "honey when's the last time you got your oil changed?" I said somewhere around the beginning of November when I had all those issues with my car needing fixed. In fact that's how I found out about the rotors because they also rotated my tires when they did that." Then I asked him why.

He said "because your oil was almost completely dried up in your car. In fact your dipstick was actually singed." He said he was told that "I was lucky my block didn't crack and my engine didn't seize". So now I'm furious. As I said I get my oil changed every 3 months and have never had an issue. I called Monroe Muffler and told the guy the findings and told him that I had just had my oil changed there in Nov. He looks up my info and says "well ma'am you had it changed in October, October 24" I said ok well that's only 2 1/2 mo. It was checked over and there wasn't found to be a leak of any kind." The man says "you have an old car it's a 2001 it's probably just eating oil." I told him I never had an oil problem before and that it had to have happened if it did with the 2 1/2 mo." I asked him how much oil they put in he says "whatever it needed" I said I want to know how much so he says he looks it up and supposedly had put in 5 quarts. He aked "how many miles are are on your car now?" I told him 78,000. He said "see there you go that's 5000 mile difference you're supposed to get your oil changed every 3000 miles. You're car is old with a lot of miles it's probably just eating oil".

That's all he would say. They didn't offer to look at it or anything. SO...guess where I'm not going to get my car worked on anymore. And guess who is going to tell everyone where not to go.